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CONCIZiIATIOir AND NATIONALITY I 



.f SPEECH 

OF 

HOA\ S. S. COX, OF OHIO. 



DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF ItEPEESENTATIVES, JANUAI:T 14, 1S61. 



The Hoiise being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and 
having under consideration the Army bill — Mr. COX said: 
• Mr. CiiATRMAX : I speak from and for the capital of the greatest of the States 
of the great Y\'est. That potential section is beginning to beappalled at the 
coUossal strides of revolution. It has immense interests at stake in this Union, 
as well from its position as its power and patriotism. We have liad infidelity 
to the Union before ; but never in such a fearful shape. We had it in the 
East during the late war with England. Even so late as the admission of 
Texas, Massachusetts resolved herself out of the Union. That resolution has 
never been repealed; and one would infer, from much of her conduct, that she 
did not regard herself as bound by our covenant. Since 185G, in the Korlh, 
we have had infidelity to the Union, more by insidious infractions of the Cx^n- 
stitution, than by open rebellion. Now, sir, as a consequence, in pai-t, of 
these very infractions, we have rebellion itself, open and daring, in terrific 
proportions, with dangers so formidable as to seem almost remediless. 

From the time I took my seat this session, I have acted and voted in every 
way to remove the causes of discontent and to stop the progress of revolution. 
At the threshold, I voted to raise the committee from each State; and I voted 
against excusing the members who sought to withdraw from it, because I be- 
lieved then, that such a committee, patriotically constituted, as i believe it v»'as, 
had in it much of hope and safety ; and becSuse, to excuse menibers from ser- 
ving on it, upon the ground of secession, was to recognize the heiesy. I am 
read}' to vote now for any salutary measure which will bring peace and pre- 
serve the Union. Herodotus relates that wiien Mardonius was encamped in 
Bceotia, before the battle cf Platfea, he and fifty of his ofliccrs were invited to 
meet the same number of Thebans at a banquet, at which they reclined in 
pairs, a Persian and a Theban upon each couch. During the entertainment 
one of the Persians, with many tears, predicted to his Theban companion the 
speedy and utter destruction of the invading army, and when asked why !'■■ 
used no influence with ISbirdonius to avert it, he answered : 

" When one would give faittiful counsel, nobody is willing to boliex c i i m. A I ' i 
of us Persians are aware of the end we are coming to, we still g<j i-ji, Lv < :;iim' a\ . ^ ; 
to our destiny ; r.nd this is the very bitterest of a man's grids, to see clearly, i,ut tn Imve r . 
power to do anything at all." 

I believe, sir, that the events now transpiring are big with disaster to my 
country. I have done my humble part for years to prevent them ; but I do 
not see now that any efi'ort on my part can avail; and this is the bitterest of 
a man's grief. It is in such a peril as this that the heart spontaneously prays 
for a nearer communication Avith a divine prescience. We long foi- some direc- 
tion from a superior power, in whose great naind the end is seen from the 
beginning. At least, one might wish for some magic mirror of IMerlin, in 
which to see the foes of our coimtry approach, so as rightly to guard against 
them. 

Four States have, in so far as they could, by their own act, separated from 
our Feileral ! •■•ti. Tiiis is one of the stern facts which this Congress has to 
encountei'. LK i^'vernment is passing through one of those historic epochs 
incident t" ;;li ualioualities. Our prosperity has made us proud, rich, infeole- 
rant, and self -ufti<tiient; and therefore prone to be rebellious. We have wr..xed 
fat — are doing well, "tempestuously welL" Ascending to the height of na- 
tional glory, through national unity, we are in danger of falling by our own 
dizziness. We are called upon to break down and tbryst aside the very means 
of our ascent — the Constitution itselfi, 



.b 



In snch a time, the bitter crimination and vain threats and insults of party 
and of sections are out of place. They should not turn the people of the North 
from doing their whole duty to the South ; n<n- the South from a more delibe- 
rate review of its past, and a more prudential view of its perilous future. No 
ina-u has the right to say or do aught that will further exasperate the public 
sentiment of the South. No good man in the North can oppose any measure 
of honorable recession from wrong. I cannot speak of South Carolina in the 
tone and temper of some. She has been a part of our national life. Her blood 
is in our veins; her Marions, Sumters, and Pinckneys are ours. Eutaw, Cow- 
pens, and Camden; are they not a part of that glory, which no more can be 
separated from the Union than the dawn from the sun ? Whatever may be our 
indignation against her, or our duty to ourselves, let us remember that public 
sentiment is not to b« reached by threat or denunciation. Our Government 
depends for its execution on public sentiment. To that sentiment alone, in ita 
calmer mood, are we to look for a restoration of a better feeling. "When that 
feeling comes, it will be hailed like the sea-bird which visited the sea-tossed 
caraval of Columbus — as the harbinger of a firm-set footing beyond. 

Other facts of a similar perilous character will soon transpire. Georgia, 
Texas, and Louisiana will assuredly follow the erratic course of South Carolina. 
Thi? fact must soon be encountered. South Carolina has been singing her 
Marseillaise, and the waves of the Gulf make accordant music in the revolu- 
tionary anthem. It but echoes the abolitionism of the North and "West; for 
scarcely had the song died away on the shores of Lake Erie, before South 
Carolina took it up with a wilder chorus! Extremes thus meet. Extremes 
north have aided, if not conspired, with extremes south, in the work of disin- 
tegration. 

That work will go on. I know that we are very slow to believe in any sign 
of dissolution. We have faith in our luck. We have trust in a certain inven- 
tive faculty, which has never yet failed us, either in mechanical or political 
expedients. Our politics are plastic to emergencies. Still I must warn the 
people of the North that it is the well-grounded fear, almost the foregone con- 
clusion of the patriotic statesmen here, that the work of breaking up will go on, 
until the entire South shall be arrayed against the entire North. 

In view of these facts, I will discuss these propositions: 

1. That secession is not a right in any possible relation in which it can be 
viewed ; to tolerate it in theory or practice is moral treason to patriotism and 
good government. 

2. Tiiat while it may not involve such direful consequences as other revolu- 
tions, still it is revolution. 

?.. That every effort of conciliation should be exhausted to check it, before 
force is applied. 

4. That if the North does not do her part fully in recession from aggression, 
it wtll be impossible to unite the northern people, o*- tny portion of the southern 
people, in repressing secession. 

5. That if the South will make a patient endeavor, equal to the great occa- 
sion, to secure her rights in the Union, 1 believe that she will succeed; and if 
she is then repulsed, it will be impossible for her to receive any detriment from 
the North ; but she -will depart in peace. 

(). If she go inconsiderately, as some States are going, the country may incur 
the fearful hazard of war. 

7. M the South press the one hard over-mastering question upon the North, 
and follow it up with seizure of forts and revenue, cannonading of our vessels 
and other aggressive acts, without giving an opportunity for conciliation, there 
will be no power in the conservatism of the North to restrain the people. No 
saofifice •will be considered too great to make in the protection and defence of 
the Union. 

8. That, in the present etate of facts, so long as the revenues can be collected 
on land or sea, and the forts and harbors can be commanded by the Federal 
Government, that Government must be, as to these matters, the Government 
de facto, as well as Jc Jure ; and that so long a.s tliis status can be maintained 
by the Executive, it should be done by all tiie legal forces of the Government. 

9. Only when revolution becomes so formidable as to be irresistible, would 
it be proper to in<juire whether coercion would not be both suicidal to the 
L^nion and criminal to mankind. 

I -would not exaggerate the fearful consequences of dissolution. It is the 



3 

breaking up of a Federative Union ; but it is not like the breaking up of society. 
It is not anaroliy. A link may fall from the chain, and the link rnay still be 
perfect, though t he chain have lost its length and its strength. In the uniformity 
of commercial regulations, in matters of war and peace, postal arrangements, 
foreign relations, coinage, copy-rights, tariff, and other Federal and national 
affairs, tliis great Government may be broken ; but in most of the essential lib- 
erties and rights for which Government is the agent to establish and protect, the 
seceding Sta^e has no revolution, and the remaining States can hAve none. This 
arises from that refinement of our polity which makes the States the basis of 
our instituted order. Greece was broken by the Persian power; but her mu-. 
nicipal institutions remained. Hungary has lost her national crown-; but her 
home institutions remain. SoTith Carolina may preserve her constituted domes- 
tic aHthority ; but she must be content to glimmer obscurely remote, rather 
than shine an<l revolve in a constellated band. She even goes out by the ordi- 
nance of a so-called sovereign convention, content to lose, by her isolation, 
that youthful, vehement, exultant, progressive life, which is our nationality! 
She foregoes the hopes, the boasts, the flags, the music, all the emotions, all the 
traits, and all the energies, which, when combined in our United States, have 
■won our victories in war and our miracles of national advancement. Her Gov- 
ernor, Colonel Pickens, in his ina'igural, regretfully " looks back upon the in- 
heritance South Carolina had in the common glories and triumphant power of 
this wonderful Confederacy, and fails to find language to express the feelings of 
the human heart as he turns from the contemplation." The ties of brother- 
hood, interests, lineage, and history, are all to be severed. No longer are we 
to salute a South Carolinian with the '' id f in se7i tend am de republic a," -which 
makes unity and nationality. What & prestige and glory are here dimm«d and 
lost in the contaminated reason of man ! 

Can we realize it? Is it a masquerade, to last for a nighty or a reality to be 
dealt with, with the world% rough passionate handling? It is sad and bad 
enough; but let us not overtax our anxieties about it as yet. It is not the 
sanguinary regimen of the French revolution ; not the rule of assignats and 
guillotine; not the cry of ''Vivent les Rouges! A mort les gendarmes!" but as 
yet, I hope I may say, the peaceful attempt to withdraw from the burdens 
and benefits of the Republic. Thus it is vinlike every other revolution. Still 
it is revolution. It may, according as it is managed, involve consequences moi'e 
terrific than any revolution since Government began. 

If the Federal Government is to be maintained, ita strength must not be 
frittered away by conceding the theory of secepsion. To concede secession as 
a right, is to make its pathway one of roses, and not of thorns. I would not 
make its pathway so ea^y. If the Government has any strength for its own 
preservation, the people demand it should be put forth in its civil and moral 
forces. Dealing, however, with a sensitive public sentiment, in which this 
strength reposes, it must not be rudely exercised. It should be the iron hand 
in a glove of velvet. Firmness should be allied with kindness. Power should 
assert its own prerogative, but in the name of law and lore. If these elements 
are not thus blended in our policy, as the Executive purposes, our Government 
will prove either a garment of shreds or a coat of mail. We want neither. 

Our forts have been seized; our property taken ; our flag torn down; our 
laws defied; our jurisdiction denied; and, that worst phase of revolution, our 
ship sent under our flag to the relief of a soldier doing hi* dut}', fired upon and 
refused an entrance at one of our own harbors. Would that were all! The 
President informs us, in his last message, that — 

"In states which have not seceded, the forts, arsenals, an. 1 magaxincs of the United States 
have been seized. This is far the most serious step which has been talien since the com- 
meaceineat of the troubles. This public property hiis long boen left without garrisons and 
troops for its protection, because no person doubted its security under the flag of the country 
in all the States of the Union. Besides, onr small army has scarcfly been suflicient to guard 
our remote frontiers against the Indian incursions. The seizure of this property, from all 
appearances, has been purely aggressive, iirul- not in raistanoi to an]/ attempt to coerce a 
SPite or atates to remain in tloe Union:^ 

All that the President has done is defensive ; all that he has resisted has been 
aggression. He proposes no aggression ; nor would I favor it. He would main- 
tain the laws and property ; what else can he do? 

These facts have to be met — how? By the conquest of all the people of a 
State? By the declaration and wager of war? I answer, by the enforcement 
of the laws and the protection of our property in a constitutional manner. 



This is tlie answer I have alreaJy voted in this House, in voting for the resola- 
tion of the gentleniau from Xew Jersey. But is it asked, how will 3 ou enforce 
the laws and k-ep fuits and pro|>erty, without war? I will ans.vej-: first, re- 
peal here every law making ports of entiy at the recusant cities or towns; and 
thus avoid as Diuch trouble as possible. Tliat is in our power, becond. Libel 
and confiscate in admiralty every vessel which leaves such porte without the 
Federal clearai-.ce. Third. Collect the revenue and preserve the property, and 
only use such force a« will maintain the defensive. But again it is a.-ked, Ik^ not 
this coercion agninst a Government de fucto, established b\- the consent of all 
the people of is, tilate under an assumed legal right? 1 answer. South Carolina 
is not de facto the Government asjo these Federal tnatters, so long a< the Federal 
Government can hold her harbors, shut in her ships, and collect the revenue. 
Who can deny that proposition? 

But still it is asked, will not the use of force in executing the laws, and pre- 
serving.our property, result in civil war? Is there anj' practical difference be- 
tween the enforcement of law wJien resisted by so large an aggressive power, 
and the actual state of war? Here is the Sphinx of our jiresent anomalous 
situation. I do not choose now to say what 1 will do, in c.ise a certain result 
follows the performance of present duty. It is enough for me now to do the 
duty of the preseBfc. But that judgment which makes no discrimination be- 
tween the enforcement of the laws and -defence of property, and the actual 
state of war, must be palsied by undue fear of consequences. ' There is nothing 
more plainly distinguished by precedent and in experience, than the dift'erence 
between the civil authority, and the war-making power. True, the military 
arm may be invoked to aid the civil authority, but it must be subordinate to it 
in many most essential particulars. It is theu the sword of the magistrate, and 
not of the soldier. Says Chief Justice Taney, in the Rhode Island case: 

" Unquestionably, a State may use its militarr power to pnt down an armed iusnrrection too 
strong to be controlled by the civil authority. The power is esscntialto the existence of every 
Government; esscutial to the preservation of order and I'rt-e institutions; and is as neces- 
sarj- to tlie States of this Union, as to any other Governmeiit.— 7 Jloicanl, 4.5. 

This Government has had insurrections, and has quelled them by the civil 
authority, with the aid of the militia, and without martial lavr. The Shay's 
rebellion and the whiskey insurrection were put down by the posse comitatus. 
The writ of habeas corpus was not suspended by the United States. But, even 
in extreme cases, where the President may call out the militia to suppress actual 
array and violence, without a law of Congress authorizing it, the force was 
only to be used witii a view to cause the laws to be duly executed. All aiTCSts 
were made under civil authority. Trials were had as in civil cases. In Penn- 
sylvania, in 17t'o, the expedition was not in its nature belligerent; but it was 
to assist the majshal. (7 Howard, SO and 81.) Washington enjoined strictly 
the subordination of the military id the civil power, and went in person to see 
that his orders were obeyed. 

The very genius and structure of our Constitution would farbid the making 
of war, in its sense of aggression, against any State of the Confederacy. But, 
unless the power to enforce reside somewhere in theGovernmeut, it is virtually 
no government at all. It wears a garment of shreds. If the force is of that 
irresponsible kind called war, the Government is then worse than a failure. 
It then wears a coat of mail. But if it have the force to maintiiu itself, and 
subordinate to itself the military w:hich it may use in its defence, then it is a 
Government. It then wears the robe of State! 

The time does not yet call fJf threats of coercion by martial or other means. 
It only calls fur .lefence from those who are aggressive. I woidd reserve this 
power of coercion, m Prince Arthur did his diamond shield. He ever feept it 
out of sight covered with a veil, and only imcovered it to fight monsters ^nd 
alien enemies. 

1 call this secession, revolution. I will not in an American Congress, with an 
oath on my conscience to support the Constitution, argue the right to secede. 
No such right can ever be had, except by amendment of the Constitution, legal- 
izing such scce?siou. It is a solecism to speak of tiie right of secession. It is 
revolution; and the burden of j>roof is on him who begins it, to show why he 
seeks the chant:'-. The combined reason of the ages has fixed in its maxims of 
thought, ml. s 10 govern the actions of men and nations, which no one can 
overrule withuut, great criminality. Tliese rules require first that revolution 
must have no li.'ht and transient cause. To ovei'throw a despotism, the caiLsas 



must be of grave -weight. A fortiori, what must be the grievance to justifj- a 
• revolt against a Government so free as oursl Besides, there must be a reason- 
able hope of a happy and successful termination. Otherwise history, with her 
judicial prescript, will ban those who begin it to an eternity of retribution. 

There must be in every State some power to which all others yield, competent 
to meet every i-;uergency. No nation can be consigned to anarchy by some 
absurd contrivance, either in the shape of personal liberty bills or secession 
ordinances. In America, we have a national Constitution. Under it, we have 
United States citizenship. To it we owe and swear allegiance. It may be a 
compact ; but it is a government also. It may be a league ; but it has authority, 
"operative," as Mr. Madison holds, " directly on the people." It may reach 
States as States ; but it does more : it reaches the people of the States through 
its executive, judicial and legislative departments. If it cannot declare war 
against a State, it is because aStateis a part of itself, and not, quoadhoc, a foi-eign 
and independent State. Its constitution is the supreme law of the land; and 
though, as Chief Justice Marshal says, (1 Wlieaton, 304,) "the sovereign power 
vested in the State government by their respective constituencies remain un- 
altered and unimpaired, yet they remain so, except so far as they were granted 
to the Government of the United States." I could cite Marshal, Jeft'erson, Madi- 
son, Jackson, Story, Duer, and Webster, almost every student, expounder-, and 
executor of the Constitution, to show these conclusions to be iri-efragable. It 
is an absurdity to contend that States, which voluntarily surrendered such por- 
tions of their sovereignties as were requisite for a national government, can be 
the equal in power of that national government. In the name of the people, 
the Constitution asserts i,ts own supremacy and that of the laws made in pursu- 
ance thereof. It is supreme, by the consent of South Carolina herself, "over 
the constitution and laws of the several States." Let South Carolina, then, at- 
tempt, as she las by her ordinance, to annul her connection with this national 
system; does she not usurp a power of the General Government? Does she 
not infringe on the rights of Ohio? Is it not a plain violation of the permanent 
obligation she is under as one of its members? Nay, she not only breaks her 
oath of fealty to the United States Constitution, but s'he breaks her oath to her 
own constitution, which re^juires that oath. 

Am I referred by members of my own party to our platform and principles 
indorsing the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions? Am I told that tlie sacred 
principles of State rights declared by Jefferson and Madison, as a check against 
the usurpations of a consolidated Federal Power, allow that each State may so 
judge of the infraction of the Constitution, and the means and measures of re- 
dress, that it may go out of the Union? These Virginia and Kentucky resolu- 
tions are misinterpreted. Judge Marshal, however federal his views, in a letter 
to Judge Story of July 31, 1833, (Story's Life and Letters, p. 135,) is an honest 
■witness to this misinterpretation. He says: 

"The word 'State rights,' as expounded by the resolutions of 1798 and the report of 1799, 
construed by our Legislature, has a charm ajrainst which all reasoning is vain. Tlioso reso- 
lutions and ihat report constitute the creed of every politician who hopes to rise in Virginia ; 
and to qufsii.m il'.om, or ecen to adopt the cc7istriu:tkni given, hy tfieir author, is deemed 
political sucrilegf." 

This Government was intended to be perpetuaL It was adopted in toto, and 
forever. Says Mr. Madison: 

"The idea of reserving the right to withdraw was started, considered, and abandoned; 
worse than reJL^cted." 
Judge Marshal says: 

"The in-irumont was not intended to provide merely for the exigencies of a few years, but 
was to endure through a long lapse of ages, the events of which were locked np in the inscru- 
table decrees of Providence." 

It was, therefore, provided with means for its own amendment. By the 
Legislatures of three-fourths of the States, there is a means of amendment; and 
in that way alone can a State withdraw. Nullification and secession, said Mr. 
Madison, are twin heresies, and should be buried in the same grave. Well, said 
General Jackson, that secession did not break a league, but it destroyed the 
nnity of a nation; hence, he argued tliat it is an offence against the whole 
Union. To say that a State may constitutionally secede, is to say that the con- 
stitutional elements were poisoned at the birth of the nation, and of malice 
prepense, were intended to kill our national life ! Such reasoning overthrows 
all Government. It is to aftirm that the tribunal appointed for the abitrament 
of mooted (ju<?stion3 iinder the Constitution, or tbat the means for its own 



6 

amendment, shall be set aside at the pleasure of one of the parties to be affected. A 
Monstrous sophistry! Aro geutlemcu of the South aware that it is from this 
twin heresj- that the Republicans have drawn tiieir ar^mentd for their personal 
liberty bills and for their repudiation of the fugitive slave law ? The very chief 
justice of Ohio, so recently reindorsed for his seditious decision in the Oberlin 
fugitive case, bases hie adjudication on the usurpations of the Federal Govern- 
ment, lie, like South Carolina, denies that "the decisions of the usurping 
party, in favor of the validity of its ywn assumptions, can settle anything." 
(Ej: parte, Bushnell, 9 Ohio State Reports, 227.) He warns against the "prac- 
tical omnipotence of the Federal Government by making authoritative the 
judgment of its judicial tribunals." lie sang t!ie Marseillaise in his ermine from 
the supreme bench, as South Carolina sings it in her convention. 

1 would, therefore, guard against the least recognition of this right of seces- 
tiou, or of uuUificalion, which is the lesser type of the same disease. It would, 
I say, destroy all government. It would dissolve the united mass of powers 
now deposited in the Union into thirty-three separate a.nd conflicting States; 
e.ich with a flag, a tariff, an army, a foreign policy, a diversity of interests, and 
an idiosyncrasy of ideas. IS'aj-, that would be tolerable ; but it would do more 
and worse. It would disintegrate States, counties, towns; tear cities from their 
places on the map; disorder finances, taxes, revenue, tariffs; aLd convert this 
fabric, now so fair and t:rm that it seems built on the earth's base, and pillared 
■with the firmament, into a play-house of cards, built ou a base of stubble. It 
would thus destroy the established order. And is such order among men, with 
a view to permanency, nothing? The North has riVhts, property, interests, 
relations in the South, not to be sundered without loss; and the Soutli in the 
North', vice versa. Is this nothing? Is depreciation of property, depression of 
business, loss and lack of employment, w^ithdrawal of capital, derangement of 
currency, increase of taxes, miscarriage of public works and enterprise, destruc- 
tion of State credit, the loss of that national symmetry, geography, strength, 
name, honor, unity, and glory, which publicists tell us are themselves the 
creators and gnari^ians of cash, credit and commerce — are these consequences 
nothing? Surely siicli a mass of complicated interests — the growth of years, 
clinging, with root and fibre, to the eternal rocks of public stability — caanot 
be uptorn without great struggle and stupendous crime. 

I wish that I could contemplate secession as a peaceful remedy. But I can- 
not. I fear that it must be a foi-ciblo disruption. The Government is framed 
so compactly in all its parts, that to tear away one part, you-tear the whole 
fabric asunder. It cannot be done by consent There is no autiiority to give 
consent. The Constitution looks to no catastrophe of the kind. It is a volun- 
tary, violent, and ex parte proceeding. A m.ajority of the States, and a great 
majorit}' of the j>eople, are hostile to it. In this angry and warlike disruption 
of the conijjact, whirc shall we find our more ]>erfect Union, the establishment 
of j\istice, domestic tranquillity, provision for the common defence, the promo- 
tion of the general welfare, an»i the security of the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and posterity f 

In this light, the ordinance of South Carolina becomes an oflfence; and Ib 
case a sufficient number of others followed, to the baukruptc}' of the remainder, 
or the injury of any, it would be worse than an offence. In the cases of Texas 
and Florida, Louisiana and Californi.a, for which millions were paid, the inquiry 
would be made whether it would not be a fraud so colossal that neither lan- 
guage nor law can measure it. 

Mr. REAGAN. I would ask the gentleman when a dollar has been paid for 
Texas? 

Mr. COX. I cannot give way. My time is limited. Besides, the same 
question was asked in the Senate; and Judge Docgi-as answered it. The coun- 
try- knows both (juestion and answer. I proceed. If, then, South Carolina can 
dispense with an amendment of the Constitution to which she solemnly acceded 
on the 23d of May, 1788, cannot slie dispense with other portions of that in- 
strument; ay, evuu with this American Congres^s? The whole framework of 
our Government, by the action of separate States, may thus be swept away. 
This Congress mayne digaolved, if not by the military usurpation which dis- 
solved the Long rurlianient, or expelled the Council of Five lluiidred from th« 
Orangery of St. Cloud, yet by the very inq>oteuce of il« organism, as the Con- 
federation dissolved under its imperfect articles, to give place to this more per- 
fect Union ! 



"What justification does South Carolina offer for this act? "Fifteen Stetes," 
says her declaration, "have deliberately refused for years to fulfill their con- 
stitutional obligations." It refers to the fourth article of the Constitution for 
the specitic cause of grievance. But is there not now, since the vote in this 
House the other day on the personal libeity bills, when the demands of return- 
ing public justice made even the sincere gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lovejot) 
recede from his ultraism — a reasonable hope of curing these evils? Again: is' 
there not the Supreme Court, as to whose fidelity no question is raised in the 
South? And are these peculiar wrongs remediless in that forum? The Gover- 
nor of Kentucky has already arraigned the recreant executive of Ohio for his 
delinquency under a kindred constitutional clause. Why may you not exhaust 
your remedies in the courts before you raise the ensign of revolt? If yoii 
would have public opinion correct the errors of the North as to fugitives from 
justice and labor, already assurances come from all quarters that such remedy 
■will be given. Republican Governors and Legislatures are beginning to recede 
from their aggressive acts. Already Ohio has begun this work of redress. 

The fugitive slave law may be the ostensible reason for secession, or ancillary 
to the real grievance. Aside from certain economic reasons, which have ever 
impelled South Carolina, and which I will not now consider, the real grievance 
consists in the apprehension of slave insuri;ections and abolition, under the au- 
spices of an Executive who, though not yet inaugurated, was elected on a prin- 
ciple of hostility to the social system of the South. Or, to give it the strongest 
statement, which I find in a pamphlet signed by the member from Arkansas, 
(Mr. HixDMAN,) "The Republican candidates were elected upon a platform de- 
structive of our rights, branding our institutions as infamous, decreeing the 
equality of the negro witli ourselves and our children, and dooming us, in the 
end, with murderous certainty, to all the horrors of insurrection and sei'vile 
war." He holds: " that to imprison slavery forever in the States where it now 
exists, will, in time, overburthen the land with the predominating increase in 
the ratio of blacks to whites, until there will be a conflict for supremacy of 
races, and the blacks will be exterminated; or else the v/liite man must aban- 
don his country forever to the negro." I will grant the full force of this /car, 
though not the sufiioiency of this or any mere fear, as a cause to justify revolu- 
tion. The Union men of the North began to warn against the dawning of this 
dangerous geographical movement in 185G. They repeated then, and then not 
in vain, the farewell words of "Washington. From every press and hust-ing 
which a Democrat could command, this evil day was prophesied. But we 
■were Cassandras. Unbelieving men derided us as doughfaces, and sneered at 
us as Union-savers. The patriotic Choate, in one of his weird and Vtondrous 
prophesies, in 1855, with the pain of anxiety and fear upon his brow, put on 
record his deliberate and inextinguishable opposition to this geographical 
party. lie regarded the contest then as the stupendous trial and peril of our 
national life. Admitting faults South and faults North, yet turning to the bat- 
tle years of the Republic and its baptism of fire, he shrank aghast at the moral 
treason of attempting to weave and plait the two north wings of the old national 
parties into a single northern one, and cut the southern wing off altogether, as 
neither far sighted nor safe, however new and bold. Let me give his state- 
ment of the complaint, for he stated it in advance as strongly as it can new ]>e 
stated : 

" To combine these parties thus against each other geographically — to take the whole vast 
range of the free States, lyiig together, sixteen out of thirty-cue, seventeen millious out of 
five or six .and twenty millions — the most populous, the strongest, the most advancing — and 
form them in battalion against the fe'«'er numbers and slower growth and waiuiug relative 
power on the other side; to bring this sectional majority under party drill and stimulus of pay 
and rations ; to ortVT to it. .as a party, tlie Government of our country ; its most coveted hon- 
ors; its lar;;-i'st s:llari.■^•; all its sweet;; of patronage and place; to penetrate and fire so mighty 
and so compact a ma-s with the still m.Te delicious idea that they are moving for human 
rights and the e'lualiiy of man : lo call out their clergy from the puliiit, the library, the bed- 
side of the tlyi:ig. the chair •.,• ; i, mi m, .ii- inquirer, the hearth of the bereaved, to bless such a 
crusade; to put in rc'i'iisii ;■": . ■ ~ i s of rhetoric and sophistry to impress on the general 
mind, the su!ilime and i'.i!; r j ' that all men are born free and equal; and that such 

a geographical jiarty is a w, ij .' .;r i m.-ans to that end— does this strike you as altogether 
in the spirit of Wasliinglim and Franklin, and the preamble to the Constitution, and the Fare- 
well Address'? Does it strike you iltiit if carried out it will prove to be a mere summer ex«ur- 
sion to Moso'.vV Will there be no bivouac in the snow, no avenging winter hanging on re- 
treat ; no Leipsie, no Waterloo ? 

Has the avenging winter indeed come! God in his mercy forbid ! 

That crusade failed in 1856. What a risk we ran then! It Bucceed«d in 



8 

1600. What a peril is now Bpon us! What a crusade it -was -which has pro- 
duced it! I well remember that my own llepuLlican competitor for this seat 
•was quoted in the Blackwood ]\Iairazine, with Tory delight, over the antisla- 
vei-y revolution which he preached in this House in lS.')f),"and which he would 
have ushered in with Bunker Hills, and other battle-fields of freedom.* 

But admitting the source of this great peri] to lie, in Republican ascend- 
ency: still, I ask, is it remediless in the Union? Admitting all you claim 
cf danger to your States from this sectional triumph; admitting" that j'ou 
are right in concerting for your own protection — yet is it right, lair, or just 
to rush forward, regardless alike of friends and foes, to a chasm where no 
guarantee can be asked or offered? Oive us one more chance to appeal to the 
returning reason of the North, now that it is startled by the fulfillment of these 
prophesies and warnings. If you do not, what then?' You will give to your 
enemies the advantage which belongs to j-ou and to us. They are already 
eager to seize the legislative as well as the executive departments. They talk 
of reforming the Supreme Court for their purposes. They who have taught 
aad practiced (lie breaches of civil discipline, are becoming'the conservators of' 
public order. On your retiring, they will filch from its old guard the ensign 
of the Constitution. Why, to break up this Government before a full hearing 
of the grievances, is to be worse even than Red Republicanism ! Shall it be 
said that some of our friends of the South are woi-se tlian the Red Communists 
of France? So it would seem, and so I will proceed to prove. 

Apprehension of evil ! It was the argument of despotism in France in 1851. 
Louis Napoleon used it for his bad piu'poses; but the French Republicans de- 
nounced it. Let me draw the analogy. 

In article fortj--five of the French Constitution, it was enacted: 

'•Le Presiilent de la Eeimblique est ehi pour quatre ans, et n'est reeligible qu'apres un in- 
tervalle de qualre aiineos." — Annnaire I/istorique, 1S4S, Appendice. p.'4:>. 

In article one hundred and ten, it was further enacted: 

"Lorsqne, dans la demicre annee d'une Legislature I'Assemblee nationale aura emis le voeu 
que la Constitution soil modiflee en tout ou en partie, il sera precede a cette rCNision de la 
maniere suivante. 

"Le voeu exprime par I'Assemblee ne sera conrerti en resolation definitive qu'apres trois 
deliberations successivcs, prises cliacune a un luois d'iutervalle el aa trois quarts des suffra- 
ges exprimes. 

"Le nombre des volants ne pourra etre moindre do einq cents." 

Thus, in 1818, Louis Napoleon was elected President for four years, the con- 
stitutional term. He was by the one hundred and tenth article, inelifirible to a 
reelection except after an interval of four yeai-s. His term would have expired 
in May, 1852. The summer of 18.51, in France, was signalized by vague ap- 
prehensions of a revolt, when the President should constitutionally go out. 
Under this apprehension the National Legislature were summoned to change 
the Constitution. It required three expressed ballots of the Assembly, taken 
at a month's interval, with three-fourths of the Assembly, and at least five 
hundred votes to be given, before that Constitution could be so changed -as to 
continue Napoleon in power. Hereupon arose a parliamentary struggle, une- 
qualed in any forum. It was before tlie giant intellects of France were exiled 
by the perfidy of its ruler. Here was a country like France, with sixty years 
of political vicissitude, wherein every tradition and compact had been viola- 
ted ; and yet even there, the Constitution of the new Republic was invested 
•with such^a sanctity, that it defied tlie majority of the Assembly to change it. 
The Lafayettea, the Hugos, the Lamartines, tiie African Generals, Lamoriciere, 
Changarnier, Cavaignac^ Bedeau, and Ltfio, struggled against this change, with 
an eloquence radiant with French fervor, and inspired with the genius of great 
deeds. Their President had sworn to be " faithful to the Democratic Republic, 
one and indivisible, and to fulfill the duties imposed by the Constitution." At 
length a vote was taken. There were 446 for the amendment ; only 278 against 
it; a uiajoi-ity of 168; but not enough; not the required three-fourths! The 

* " J:'peci'lio8 are made in wliioh icav to thi' death icith Sf'irtii/ is openly announoed as the 
only remedy for the evil wliicli they are threiiti'iu-d — 'Let ino say ti> you, my fellow-citi- 
zens.' said the lion. S. Galloway, of Ohin, at an irnmeiLse catherinj in New York, (in which, 
among the abolitionists, Thadi-us Hyatt fl;ruri'<l,) "if the' siirns I'f the tinu's are read cor- 
rectly by me, there are ytt to be other Concords, Lexinirtoiis. and Runktr hills. [Tremend- 
ous applause.] The crisis has come. Here are two aiilairouislic |)o«ers al>i>ut to eoine In 
collision — freoiloni and slaviry. The inii>stion is, which we sliall receive? [Loud eries of 
' f'recilom ! '] Freedom, you say ; then labor and flghl, if need be, for ii.^'— Blackwood, 
Juli/, 1800, page lift. 



9 

arnfty President, finding he could not change the Constitution in the coustitn- 
tional manner, began to plj the popular will for his purposes. The Conseils 
GencTftux demanded, and two million people i>etitioned for the cliange. But 
the Republicans, moderate and red, stood their ground. Even Proudhon, blood- 
red Communist, from his prison of St. Pelagic, wrote to Girardiu that universal 
suffrage would liOt be price enough for such a breach of the Constitution. The 
great question was referred to a committee, of which De Tocqueville was chair- 
man, lie, too, withstood the pressure of power. The will of the minority, 
for whose protection constitutions are made, became, through the constituted 
mode of amendment, the will of the majority; nay, of the State. Just as nine 
States in this Union hold our Constitution in statu quo, against the will of the 
remainder. These 103'al Frenchmen appealed to the nation, against the ad- 
herents of the Bourbo'n, Orleans, and Bonaparte. " Xo," they said, "we will 
not give up the repose of France, at the price of quieting apprehension of fu- 
ture revolt." They thus confined the enemies of the Republic to the circle of 
the Constitution, from which they could not break without crime. They de- 
clared that the prolongation of the term of Napoleon was a crime, impious and 
parricidal. When it was said that Napoleon would override the Constitution 
with force in 1852, if not before, they answered: "Such a crisis wiil be revo- 
lution, arising fi-om a violation of the fundamental compact. lu that case we 
declare that, enveloped in the flag of France, we will do the duty which the 
salvation of the Republic imposes!" 

On the other hand, it was urged, as it is here urged, that if the Constitution 
was not broken, there would be daugers more fatal. By a fore-knowledge of 
disaster, it was urged that the end of Napoleon's term must be a convulsion, 
which the Assembly, acting on an apprehension, ought to bind in advance. 
To save him from perjury, a majority of the Assembly were willing to commit 
it themselves. So now, according to my theory, South Carolina would break 
the Constitution and her oath of fealty, in apprehension of an aggression which 
the President elect, even if he would, has no power to commit. 

The summer of 1851 passed in France. Again and again had the minority 
of the Assembly rescued the Constitution from civil dethronement. They tri- 
umphed in the forum of reason. But stay! In a night — in the midst of the 
deVjates of the Assembly — on that fatal December night, the usurper seized the 
reins of power, and like a thief, by a nocturnal surprise, he silenced every 
voice but his own, muzzled the press, struck down the Assembly, transported 
its leaders without judgment, made his Senate of mock Dukes, and surrounded 
himself with the bastards of his race. He illustrated the glory of a reign 
based on nullification, force, perjury, and fraud! And is this the banquet to 
which the American people is invited, by those among us who hate Red Re- 
publicans even worse tlian Black? Let the American freeman from this exam- 
ple remember this lesson : If political compacts like our Constitution be bro- 
ken, the limits of authority are eflaeed. Right succumbs to force. It signifies 
little whether such acts are done by Executive usurpation, military compres- 
sion, eongrcs-iional action, or State secession; the Government i's gone! States 
which will not keep inviolate the fixed principles of constitutional right, re- 
pudiate their own strength, assassinate tlieir own life, tarnish their own glory, 
and will receive and deserve the ill-starred fate of France! In whatever form 
these infractions may come, history has but one answer for their efi"ect. When 
law is defied successfully, division will come armed with tenfold terror. Force 
'will be arrayed against force. The brute rules and reason dies. If not resisted, 
there is but one alternative: yokes of wood instead of cords of silk, and yokes 
of iron instead of yokes of wood. The red spectre of revolution, or the gen- 
tler movements of acquiescent infraction of the organic law. There is but one 
step from the Capitol to the Tarpeian rock. After centuries of brave struggle, 
thus France lost the Republic. What shall we say of America, with her sev- 
enty years crowded with the trophies of her success and greatness? Read the 
prophetic warning of Judge Story (vol. 2, p. 138, of his Life and Letters) in 
his introduction to his Commentaries on the Constitution: 

"The innuence of the disturbhig causes which, more than once in tlie Convention, were on 
the point ol' breaking' ui) tlio Uiii'>n, have since iinmoasurably increased in concentration and 
yigor. The very uii,i';l:!. - ' ;i im.m riii ::i. c. nf. ---.ily founded on a compromise, were 
then felt with a Mr' : r - i ..i' discontent, whether accidental or 

permanent, has sill i . i ■ m .iniul sense of these inequalities. The 

North cannot but j. !. i .<■ tiai ;■ Ik - ; i ,,!> 1 1.. ilir ^.lIltll a superiority of representatives, 
already amoimting to tweniy-tlvL', beyond its due propurtion; and the South imagines that, 



10 

with all this prcpoiiflcrancp in representation, the other parts of the Union enjoy a more per- 
fect i)roieL'licjn of tln-ir interests than her own. The West feels her jrrowinjr power anil weight 
in tlje Union, and llie Atlantic folates begin to learn that the sceptre must one day depart 
from them. If. under those circumstances, the Union should once be broken up, it is impos- 
sible that a new Constitution sliould ever be formed embraciui: the wli..le territory. We shall 
be divided into several nations or confederacies, rivals in power and interest, too proud to 
brook injury, and too close to make retaliation distant or ineffectual. Our very animosities 
■will, like those of all other kindred nations, become more deadly, because our linease, laws, 
and language are the same. Let the history of the Grecian and luilian Kepublics warn us of 
our dangers. The national Coubtitution is our last and our only secuiitv. United we stand, 
divided we fall." 

Ah! it is easier to coramit than to justify such a parricide! But to justify it 
on an appreliension, is neither courat^eous nor safe. Let South Carolina be- 
ware!* God is just and hi.story inexorable. In leaving the ensign of the stars 
and stripes, she will find no repose beneath her little paltn. It is from Augus- 
tus to Augu<tulus, Her onlj' renown and strength are in the clustered States — 
tlie BancU'stanf, as tiie Germans term it — not in selfish, unfiaternal, and hostile 
loneliness. When she rends the bonds of the Constitution, she opens her 
peace to the chances of that dark future, so vividly anticipated by the gentle- 
man from Arkansas. 

I do not say tiiat I would vote means and money to repress her revolution. 
But am I not bound by my oath to support the Constitution of the United and 
not of the dis-United States? If I do not do my part to carry on this Govern- 
ment, and to enforce its laws, have I any business here? Neither can I with- 
hold my respect from Magistrates because they are not my choice. Private 
opinions must give place to public authority. The election of Abraham Lin- 
coln, under the forms of the Constitution, however deplorable, cannot be ques- 
tioned with argument or arms. Judge Douglas exhausted the argument in his 
reply to the Norfolk questions; and I have no such poor opinion of any portion 
of our people as to believe that they will question it witli arms. South Caro- 
lina herself participated in this election, giving her voice for her favorite. 
When, therefore, she would ignore thi.s election, and break the established 
order for this and other unjustifiable causes, she runs a fearful risk. Iler des- 
tin}^ becomes a ratlle. The insurrection of her slaves will then only become a 
question of opportunity. The slave trade will not help, only hasten and aggra- 
vate her ills. Terhups, in the eye of Providence, it was her wisest act, when she 
yielded her assent to that Federal covenant which was and is a restraint against 
"herself and her slaves and for herpelf and her safet}-. That assent and that 
covenant were the highest expression of the popular will; for they were the 
voice of the majoa-it}-. which Jefferson called the vital principle of Republics, 
and from which there is no appeal but to force — the vital principle and imm€- 
diate parent of despotism. 

Before risking such chances, cannot the South await the returning justice of 
the North? Unless disunion be determined upon in spite of every effort at 
harmony, I do not see why, after having so long acquiesced in the breach of 
tlie fourth article of the Constitution, any Stale should go out upon that 
ground, even though, as Mr. Webster held, its breach be treason. And as for 
the North, so long as the Federal laws remain unbroken, and no serious detri- 
ment to the public property and peace is threatened,. cannot she, too, tolerate 
these heated appeals, rebellious ordinances, and too cureless handling of gun- 
powder at Point Munis, with ecjuanimity, for the chance only of the rehabilita- 
tion of the .seceding States? At least, until the North repeat their nullification 
laws, would not such e<panimitj be rnagnauimity ? Let tlie South desist from 
further attempts to obstruct the collection of the Federal revenues and despoil 

* Charles Cotesworth Pinckncy, on the 17th .January, 17S8, in the debates in the South Caro- 
lina Cimvention, on tlie adoption of the Federal Constitution, said : " We are so weak lliat, by 
ourselv'e-i, we could not form an union strong euouith for tlie purpose of effectually protect- 
4ng each other. Without union with the other States, South Carolina must soon fall. Is there 
any one among us so much of a Qui.xotte as to suppose that this State could long maintain 
her iudepciideiice if slic stood alone, or wag onlv connected with the other southern Stales." 
EUluWv aUtte Cunvititum Dcbate.'<, vol. 4, \^. -.'TS. 

The same slatesuiaii, on page 'Jl'li, in paying a compliment to the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, says: "The seiiarale indepeniliiue and imliviiiual sovereignty of tlie several States 
were never thought of by the eiilighUiud l.:nid of patriots who framed this declaration. The 
several .-^lales are not even mentioned by iiMine in any part of it, as if it was iiileihU-d to im- 
Jiress the maxim in America, that our freedom ainl iiidepeiiilence arose from our union, and 
that, willuuil it, we eould neither be free nor iiidepemleut ; let us then eon^idcr all attempts 
to weaken this I'nion, by ;naiiil:iining that eaeli Slate is se|iarately and individually inde- 
pendent, as a species of political heresy which can ue\cr beucflt us, but may bring on us lUo 
most serious distresses." 



11 

the property of the Government ; let there be no attempt to exclude the people 
Narth and WeH from tliis Federal District and Capitol, and no attempt to shut 
U3 who are inland from the Gulf or sea; and then what occasion is there likely 
to arise in which the Xorth will dare take up arms to shoot or bayonet south- 
ei-n citizens into the Union, which they only leave, we may hope, constructively? 
If, as Mr. Douglas argued, war ia disunion, cannot we, who love it so well, 
afford to be patient for the Union? 

But what a danger is here ! Once let the fealty to this Government be 
broken, and who can restrain the excesses incident thereto? If such excesses 
be conmiitted,_ there would be aroused a martial spirit which, in rufhing to the 
defence of Major Anderson and his men in Fort Sumter, or to avenge their 
death, would do and dare all in the name of our Great Republic. Touch not 
a hair of his head ! He is sacred to-day. He embodies the patriotism of mil- 
lions. Accident has made him the defender of that flag which has floated from 
Bunker Hill to Mexico. His death would open a gulf in which the people 
would pour, in vengeance and in vain, their treasures and their cliildren. 

Or if a confederation South propose to control the mouths of the Mississippi 
and Its banks, do you believe it could be donfe without a protest of arms? Do 
you know the history of that acquisition, and its vital necessity to the North- 
west? I hope you have listened to the able recital of my fiiend from Illinois 
(Mr. McClernand) touching these points. It would seem, from the news we 
have to-day, that a system of espionage and detention by force has already 
been begun in Mississippi, upon steamers from the Xorth. That miglity river, 
of two thousand miles extent, one of .whose tributaries doubles the parent 
stream in its length,_ with its $60,000,000 worth of steamers, doing the business 
of twelve States, with an area of one million two hundred thousand square 
miles drained by its waters — from the snows and timbers of the North to the 
aun and blooms of the South — will ever remain in the Union ! It was the 
necessity for its use and outlet which, in part, called for the Constitution 
seventy five years ago. As the veteran General Cass told me, the s[)arse popu- 
lation in my own State, of which he was one, were even then ready to rise in 
arms, in consequence of a provisional treaty with Spain, which did not ade- 
quately provide for the coveted riparian privileges. And now, after a usufruct 
of three quarters of a century, not only the commerce, the honor, and the 
rights of the West, but the protesting voices of nature, calling from valley and 
bill, in summer rains, in gold washing streams and smiling cultivation ; nay 
progress itself, which is the life of the West— which has made it deserve the 
poet's phrase, applied to ancient Latium, «6erc glcba', atque potcns armis— 
progress, which is the stride of a god across the continent— all these agencies 
would conspire to redden the Mississippi to float our unequalled produce be- 
tween its banks to the sea! It is industry which would thus decree; and it 
would execute its ow-n edict. With us, not gold, nor cotton, but industry is 
KING I However homely its attire, it wears Uie spiritual purple, and on its 
brow the coronal of bearded grain, impearled with the priceless sweat of inde- 
pendence. It will stretcli its sceptre from the river unto the ends of tiie earth ! 
Neither imposts, nor tariffs, nor obstructions, nor foreign control, nor hazard 
of foreign war, can hedge in its empire. These rights of transit and outlet are 
ours by use, by purchase, by possession ; and ours they will remain. 

Leaving these elements of strife unstirred, the secession movement may van- 
ish into a foolish dream— a spectre of the night, which will depart when the 
dawn shall again environ us in the cycle of its felicities! 

But, as to these vague apprehensions of aggressions from the President elect. 
Would it not be best to await his entrance into power? What overt act has 
be yet done, or his party, in a Federal way? If you resist now, it should be 
against the States whose legislation is hostile; not against the General Govern- 
ment, which has done you no wrong. When that overt act is done which you 
fear, you will find the northern Democracy ready to join you in the defence of 
your rights and the vindication of your equality of privilege. 

Will southern statesmen look a few facts in the face, not with that dumb 
gaze wliich deadens the will and paralj-zes the intellect, but with that large 
roundabout conmion sense which distinguished her early statesmen ? Is not ' 
Mr. Lincoln powerless for harm? Elected by about two million out of five 
million votes, he is in a minority of a million. That minority diminishes with 
every hour of northern misery, want, and bankruptcy. In that million there 
are antagonizing elements, without power morally or politically. More than 



half of that million -will ehow a feeling of fraternity, which no partisanship 
can overwhelm. They will unite with that gallant band of Democrats and 
Americans in the Xorih, who have ever warned and worked azainst the im- 
pending eatostrophe. They will stand in the next Senate and House as a bul- 
wark against the further advances of sectionalism. In my own Slate there are 
two luinJred thousand patriots already as a nucleus for this great party of 
Union and justice. 

These men, sir, will welcome any honorable settlement. For myself, I hav« 
a preference. I v.'ould prefer Judge Douglas'b propositions even to the border 
State projet. l>ut I will vote for either, for they answer every reasonable 
demand with respect to the fugitive slave law, slavery in this District, and on 
other point?. In reference to the Territories, the hovier projet provides: 

"That tlieline of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes shall be run througli all the exisUnjc 
territorv <>( the United States; that in all iio'rth of that line slavery shall bt- prohibited, and 
Uiat, soiith of tliat line, neither Concress nor the Territorial Lefrislature shall lierealXer pase 
any law abolishing, prohibiting, or in any manner inlerforing with African ^avery. and that, 
when any Territorv containing a sufllcient population for one member of Congress in any 
area of sixty thousand snuare miles, shall apply for admission as a State, it shall be admitted, 
with or without slavery, as its constitution may determine." 

But, if this will not answer, let the proposition of Mr. DorcLAS or Mr. Rim 
be adopted. Nay, further, if it be the only alternative to preserve this Union, 
I would vote for the proposition of Mr. Crittkn^kn. Much as I dislike, in this 
age of progress, an irrevocable law, still I would write it' in the Constitution, 
if thus ouly you can preserve that instrument. It provides for an irrevocable 
division of' the territorj'. The President says of it: 

"The proposition to compromise, by letting the North have exclusive control of the terri- 
tory above a certain line, and giving southern institutions protection below that line, ought 
to receive universal approbation. In itself, indeed, it may not be entirely satisfactory; but 
when the alternative is between a rcasonalile concession on both sides, and die ilestruction of 
the Union, it is an imputation on the patriotism of Congress to assert that its members will 
hesitate for a moment." 

Shall this appeal for compromise be ineffectual ? It may be a sacrifice of 
northern sentiment. But, sir, the conservative men will sacrifice much for the 
Union. Sacrifice and compromise are convertible terms. They are words of 
honorable import. The oue gave us Calvary, the other the Constitution. No- 
thing worth having was ever'gained without them. Even the father compro- 
mised with the prodigal son, despite the meanness of the elder brother. He 
saw him afar off, ran to him, and, with the evidences of affection, restored him 
to his heirship and honor. Sacrifice for our political salvation! Heaven will 
smile upon it. The dove of peace will rest upon it. If the Republicans will 
only lend us a few of their conservative votes in this House, wo will do oar 
part to make compromise honorable. If you dislike the word compromise, 
and are content with the offices and power it will insure you, very well. You 
may bear away the booty, we will carry the banner! We will not quarrel, 
nor need wo taunt each other. You may enjoy the honors and patronage of 
administration ; to us will belong the laureled crown of the revolution, and thuc 
eivic wreath of the great convention! 

Our southern friends do not know the Republicans as we do. They will be 
content with the tricks, and, I trust, allow us tlie honors. They will be as harm- 
less in office as most men are. When Gkn. Wilson talks of grisiding the slave 
power to powder, he never intends to use the powder, only to enjoy the power. 
(Laughter.) When the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lovejov) would spoak to 
the God of battles, he is only praying to an unknown God. (Renewed laughter.) 
When Senator Wai>i:, at Belfast, Maine, four years ago, proclaimed that there 
was no Union, that the pretended Union was meretricious: and when he pro- 
posed to drive "slavery back to her own dark dominions, and there to let her 
rot, and damn all who foster her," he was only illustrating that Christian sweet- 
ness of temper and fragrance of sentiment which now is offered up as incense 
on the only altar lie knows — that of a meretricious Union, whose shew-bread 
he would eat and whose precious emblems he would plunder ! The John Brown 
and IIel|)er characteristics are convenient garments among them, to be put on 
to proselyte the churches and the old women, and to be put off to please wide- 
awakes and old Whigs. They do this for office. They do not think of it5 effect 
upon the South. Itis a trick to be ignored when in offioe._ These defiant men 
at home will become sucking doves in power. It is not instinct to fight over 
provender. If the South could understand them, and not take them at their 
•word too rashly. 



13 

It is said that the reason why the South opposes the rule of Eepublicanism 
is, that tlieir tenets are misrepresented at the South. I will not now show yon 
■what they profess at home. I hope they will fully disavow, under the compo- 
sing sweets of fat jobs and offices, their bad acts and worse avowals when out 
of office. And is there not reason for hope? Patience! already they are willing 
to forego their congressional provisos against slavery. Tl^ey hsi'Te already 
proposed to drop intervention by Congress. They are willing to accept 'N'ew 
Mexico as a slave State. Courage, gentlemen ! I do not taunt, I applaud, this 
spirit of conciliation. Tlie Republican party would enjoy its power. In this 
it is not peciiliar, perhaps. It is a way men and parties have. It. will remember 
tliat to retain power — in the matter of personal liberty bills, non-delivery of 
ci'iminals, judicial decisions, and other aggressions on the Constitution, these 
'Strongs cannot stand. It is as revolutionary to try to keej> such things as they 
are, as it is to upset the Government because of them. Tli^^rc is nothing so 
convulsive or unnatural as the strain to keep wront'; in thi' :>.-<-■,- ],r]r.:)\. Mr. Lin- 
coln in tlijj White House may not be the rail-split (^-r <i':i <>; '<■. ^\l)raham, in 
faith, may ofier up his "irrepressible" offspring. (J. r.-, -;!;:'•:.) Ilewillbea 
conservative, with a total oblivion of the radical. The one will ' ' ■ I'l'icl " with 
the other; and the former will become all one thing, without t;' ■ i. ;. I tliink 
he will disappoint the South as much as he will the a,bolition v, id.; ■.' iiiv i>i;rty. 
In their Sumner speeches and in their abolition platforms, it v, uii'd seem as if 
the Republicans would buld this Union together by the runnintc nnuse of .John 

Brown gibbets; but when they approach the august ]>'■■- ■ ■ <" power, and 

undertake to rule tliirty-one millions of people, as uIm ■ :,i1ed here, 

they hold up the fasces of t-he Republic and wonder v.ii v iiderstood 

or misrepresented their innocency! 

Tlieir sueee-s is the result of passionate appeals. Passion soon subsides. This 
is the old and avowed means of the anti-slavery party. It began in England, 
as you will see by the London Times of November 3, 1 :^"?, ' ' ' od orators 
went over Britain, under pay of an anti-slavery prop:i was then 

said that Geoi'ge Thompson, who was sent to this coui. , ■ .ostle, was 

"the very lecturer we want, because his lectures are ad<ir. ; ;1 tc the passions. 
We are so satisfied of the goodness of our cause, that we do j;ot wantto consult 
the reason oj- judgment of the people. If they vote for us, we do not care 
•whether their votes come through their passions or not." Tbis brute appeal to 
the passions succeeded in England, as her ruined West Indies testify'; for phi- 
lanthropy there is great in proportion to its distance from its otjject. But here 
the sense of a brotherly people will reprehend such appeals. Tliej- see the African 
here in hisrelatioa of servitude. They know what he becomes in the Xorth when 
free. They know that it is impossible to manumit him wnthout iujury irrepara- 
ble to white and black. They will notsacrifice this Governraentor twentj'-seven 
and a half million whites to do no good to three and a half li'ii'ion blacks. Even 
many of tliose who oppose slaver}^ find in it the relatio, ■ ^' lh • eagle and 
tlie lamb sustained in the air. It might have been wioi; Ic to have 

seized the lamb. The eagle, while holding it, may rem ; 'lusness of 

tJie wrong he is doing; but it does not follow that lie sli , p from his 

talons to the earth. It seems impossible for any one 'w i.-sophy of 

-Republican princijdes, and not revolt in sober reason l : able and 

suicidal results. Thef-e is hope that it will be as timid in pov, r- i<,:- ii. is destruc- 
tive in principle. Heaven will smile on such timidity. Nay, it will cease to 
be such, if prompted by an honest desire to establish justice by the retraction 
of wrong. It will become moral courage. 

Wlien Mr. Giddings writes to Mr. Ewing, that none but cowards, none but 
unvirile minions of the slave power, like himself, are afraid of dissolution, he 
begins to show the impotence of a rage at a fracture alrciidy begun in the party 
he originated. The Republican party, it is to be hoped, under the lead of 
Bates, Raymond, Corwin, Ewing, Weed, ay, and Seward and Lincoln also, will 
drown the Giddings crew, even if they have to scuttle their own party ship,, 
and go down with it. 

Time, patience, fidelity to your old and tried friends, gentlemen of the South, 
and all will be well! Let us exhaust every effort at an accommodation. Pro- 
test if 3-ou will ; secede in your harmless way if you are so impelled; but do 
not make an aggression upon the laws of the L^nion until in a last resort, when 
your northern friends can sustain you and history will justify' you, 

There is wisdom in the letter of George Washington, of July 27, 1198, accept- 



14 

ing the cominand in chief, in the threatened war against the French directory. 
Said he : 

"Satisfied tliat vou have sincerely endeavored to avert war, and exhausted to the last 
drop the cu\> of reconciliation, wo can, with pure hearts, appeal to Heaven for the justice 
of our cause." 

"When you have drained the cup of reconciliation dry and have not justice, 
you tvill find a majority of northern men ready to fight your battle on our 
ground. Mever, never will the Detnocrats of Ohio, so long a3 their Republican 
governors, legislators, and judges, do not retrace their steps and do justice to 
the Constitution which they have annulled; never will these Democrats, the 
best, I will not say the onh/ fighting element of Ohio, thrust Republican wronga 
down the throats of the South at the point of the bayonet! Am I answered 
that no such wrongs exist? If there be an Ohio Republican on this floor who 
80 answers, I throw down the glove and will lift the veil from the spotted lep- 
rosy of our Republican rule. I will not sit here in silent acquieBcence of the 
disgraceful conduct of my own State. I have no State pride in thmaction of 
our legislative, judicial, and executive ofhcers. Let the supporters or Brinker- 
hoff, Sullirf, Dennison, and their companions, take up the glove 1 If they would 
call South Carolina to accoAint, let them first remove the beam from their own 
eye. The}" never can, while spotted with moral treason and guilty of deliberate 
nullification, make Ohio Democrats the tools of their vengeance, never — never I 
When they denounce the mad precipitancy of the South, let them remove its 
cause ! Iknow and ponder what I say. You will have justice if you will have 
patience and permit reconciliation ; and if you do not get it then, after a fair 
trial, you will have immunity from northern attack. 

Whatever the legal powers of the Federal Government may be, they derive 
all their efficiency from the popular will. The Constitution gives the Govern- 
ment force to execute the law; but it isii force, after all, which resides in the 
people, and which they will withhold in an unjust cause. We have no Army 
to execute the edict of Republican injustice. Our bayonets think. We have 
in the West, beneath a sheathen roughness, a keen sabre ready to flash in de- 
fence of the Union to which our peojde owe so much, and which is the best be- 
loved of their heart. And if no time be left for conciliation ; if you of the 
South desert your friends and the Union to their fate; if you leave to be decided 
but the one ^reat overmastering problem, Union or disunion; if in the presence 
of this hard solitary question, they are left to decide it, and peril come from 
their decision, which conservative men cannot avert, there will ring out from 
the yearning patriotic heart of the mighty West, it m&j be in agony and despair: 
the Union, now and forever, one and indivisible — it must and shall be preserved! 

I warn the Republican party that tliey will need the aid of the patriotic men 
of the North to sustain their "Executive. This revolution is reserving its more 
eflfectual overt acts for Republican rule. What then ? It will have become 
strong by cooperation. No Republican Administration can enforce the law, 
unless the Republican State authorities first place themselves right before the 
people, and reconstruct the moral bases of their Government?. By the 4th of 
March, South Carolina will have the Gulf States united. It will appeal to that 
economic law which is stronger than sentiment. B}- i«s appeal to the interests 
of the cotton States it will succeed in securing cooperation. 

Before we enter upon a career of force, let us exhaust everj- efi'ort at peace. 
Let us seek to excite love in others by the signs of love in ourselves. Let there 
be no needle-=s |n-ovocation and strife. Let every reasonable attempt at com- 
promise be ciinsidered. Otherwise we have a terrible alternative. War, in 
this age and in tliis country, sir, should be the ultima ratio. Indeed, it ma}' well 
be questioned whether there is any reason in it or for it. What a war! End- 
less in its hate, witjiout truce and without mercy. If it ended ever, it would 
only be after a fearful struggle; and then with a heritage of hate which would 
forever forbid hnrmonj'. Ilenry Clay forewarned us of such a war. His pic- 
ture of its consequences I recall" in his own language: 

" I will not nttem;it to describe scenes which now happily lie coneealsd from our view. 
Abolitionists thcnisi'Ivcs would shrink back in dismay and horror at tlie contemplation of 
desolated fluids, conflajrratcd cities, murdi-rcd inlmhilants, awd tlit" overthrow of the fairest 
fabric of human government that ever rose to aniinuto tlic hopos of civili/.od man. Nor 
should the AboliUonists (latter thonisclvcs that, if tUi-y can snci^ed in llu-ir oJiJoot of uniting 
the jicoplo of the free States, they will enti-r llio conto-t with nuuuTical t-upiriority that must 
Insure victory. All history and experience proves the lia/.ard and \iuoertainty of war. And 
wo are admonished by llo'ly AVrit that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. 



15 

" But if thev were to conquer, whom would they eonqner ? A foreign foe— one who had in- 
sulted our fla>i, invaded our shores, and laid our country waste? No, sir; no. It would be a 
conquest without laurels, without elory— a self, a suii-idal eonquest-a conquest of brothers 
over brothers, achieved by one over another portion of thedescendents of common ancestors, 
who nobly pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, had fought and bled, 
side by side, in many a hard battle on land and ocean, severed our country ft-om the British 
crown, and established our national independence." 

Such a war is the almost unavoidable result of a dissoluiion of this Confed- 
eracy. Mr. Madison (N'o. 61, Federalist) urged as a reason for the Union, that 
it destroyed every pretext for a uiilitary establishment; "but its dissolution,'* 
said he, " will be the date of a new order of things. Fear and ambition would 
make America copy Europe, and present liberty everywhere crushed between 
standing armies and perpetual taxes." He augured for a disunited America a 
■worse condition than that of Europe, Would it not be so ? Sm.all States and 
great States; new States and old States ; slave States and free States; Atlantic 
States and Pacilic States; gold and silver States; iron and copper States; grain 
States and lumber States; river States and lake States ; all having varied intei'ests 
and advantages, would seek superiority in armed strength. Pride, animosity, 
and glory, would inspire every movement. God shield our country from such 
a fuffilhnent of the prophesy of the revered founders of the Union. Our strug- 
gle would be no short, sharp struggle. Law, and even religion herself, would 
become false to their divine purpose. Their voice would no longer be the voice 
of God, but of his enem3^ Poverty, ignorance, oppression, and its handmaid, 
cowardice, breaking out into merciless cruelty; slaves false; freemen slaves, 
and society itself poisoned at the cradle and dishonored at the grave — its life, 
now so full of blessings, would be gone with the life of a fraternal and united 
State-hood. What sacrifice is too great to prevent such a calamity? Is such a 
picture overdrawn? Already its outlines appear. What means the inaugural 
of Governor Pickins, when he says, "from the position we may occupy towards 
the northern States, as well as from our own internal structure of society, the 
government may, /roHi necessity, hecoyne strongly inUitariJ \n its organization?" 
What means the raiaute-men of Governor Wise ? What the southern boast that 
they have a rifle or shot-gun to each family ? What means the Pittsburg mob? 
What this alacrity to save Forts Moultrie and Pinckney ? What means the boast 
of the southern men of being the best arm.ed people in the world, not counting 
the two hundred thousand stand of Uuited States arms stored in southern arse- 
nals ? Already Georgia has her arsenals, with eighty thousand muskets! What 
mean these lavish grants of money by southern Legislatures to buy more arms? 
What mean these rumors of arras'and force on the Mississippi ? These few facts 
have already verified the prophesy of Madison as to a disunited Republic. 

Mr. Speaker, he alone is just to his country; he alone has a mind unwarped 
by section, and a memory unparalyzed by fear, who warns against precipitan- 
cy. He who could hurry this nation to the rash wager of battle, is not fit to - 
hold the seat of legislation. What can justify the breaking up of our institu- 
tions into belligerent fractions? Better this marble Capitol were leveled to 
the dust; better were this Congress struck dead in its deliberations; better 
an immolation of ever}- ambition and passion which here have met to shake 
the foundations of society, than the hazard of these consequences! 

As yet, I do not believe that the defensive conduct of the Executive involves 
these consequences. Nay, I hope tliat firmness in resisting aggression, with 
the kindness which he has endeavored to show, may do much to avert them. 
Certainly weakness and indecision now will not avail to check the rising tide 
of public sentiment, and preserve the public peace. 

I agree with much that my friends from Illinois, (Mr. McClernand,) New- 
York, (Mr. SitKLEs,) and Ohio, (Mr. Vallaxdigham,) have ^id as to the inter- 
ests, dignity, and rights of their own sections. I will not now go into any 
calculatiou"or contemplation about the results of a disseverance of this Union. 
Long may it be averted — that picture of Ohio, as the narrow isthmus between 
a broken East and a divided West, with a hostile southern border! Long may 
it be averted— that sad picture of New York, a great free emporium, trading 
to all the world, %nd closed against the interchange of her own inland ! We 
have gloom enough without these new schemes of division. I invoke the bet- 
ter spirit of him who never spoke so truly prophetic as a statesman, as when 
he combined in his speaking the great truths of a comprehensive political 
economy — as when Washington said: 



IC 

• 

"Iq contemplating the causes which maydistorb onr Union, it occurs as a matter of serious 
concern thalaii) grouiKl bliould have been furnisliKl for chanicteriziug panics by geographical 
discrimination!*, norlhein and southern, Atlantic and western, whence designirifr nieu may 
endeavor to incite a belief tliat there is a real difference of local interests ami views. Tou 
cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring 
iVuiu the-^c mi.'reiircscntiitions. They tend to render alien to each other those who ought U) 
be bound tO|.'etlicr by fraiermil affcciion." 

In these days of anticipated trouble, vrheri financial disaster tracks the step 
of political infidelity; when the violatitn of compact is followed close by the 
intemperate zealotry of revoUition ; whi n even the property of our Union is 
seized, and our fiatr is torn down imder its impulses; when, as if premonitory 
of some great sacrifice, the veil of our political temple seems rent, and the 
earth about us quakes, and the very graves give up their dead, who comes 
forth to wain, beseech, advise, and 'moderate, in this hour of our countrj-'a 
deepest gloom and peril, let us heed with an all-embracing and all-compromis- 
ing patriotism, the warning of Washington, whose voice, though he be dead, 
yet epeaketh from yonder tomb at Mount Vernon, and whose august presence 
I would summon iiere as the Preserver of that country whose greatest pride 
it is to hail him as its Fatder! 

In his sacred name, and on behalf of a people who have ever heeded his 
warning, and never wavered in the just defence of the South as of the North, 
I appeal to Puuthern men who contemplate a step so fraught with hazard and 
strife, to pi'.use. Clouds are about us! There is lightning in their frown! 
Cannot we direct it harmlessly to the onrth ? The morning and evening prayer 
of the people I speak for in such weakness, rises in strength to that Supreme 
lluler who, in noticing the fall of a sparrow, cannot disregard the fall of a 
nation, that our States may continue to be — as they have been — one ; one in the 
unreserve of a mingled national being; One as the thought of God is One! 

[Here Mr. Cox's hour expired; but, by unanimous consent of the House, he 
was allowed to go on and conclude l.is reinarks.] 

These emblems above us, in their canopy of beauty, each displaying the 
Bymbol of Slate interest, State pride, and State sovereignty, let not one of 
them be dimmed Vjy the rude breath of passion, or effaced by the ruder stroke 
of enmity. They all shine, like stars, differing in glory, in their many hued 
splendors, by the light of the same orb, even as our States receive their lustre 
from the Union, which irradiates and glorifies each and all. 

Our aspirations and hojjes centre in the proud title of American citizen. 
■WTiether we hail fmm the land of granite or the everglade of flowers; from 
the teeming bosom of the West, the sea waf-hed shore of the East, or the gold- 
bearing sierras of the Pacific slope — all are imbound by the sanj^ rigol of 
'American patriotism. Abroad, at home, in palace or in cabin, in ship or on 
land, we rejoice in tluit proud dii«tinction ef Aiuerican citizen. We look upon 
our nationality as the actual of that ideal described by Ediriund Burke iu a 
strain of finisi"3d eloquence and sublimest philosophy — as something better 
than a partnership in a trade, to be taken up for a temporary interest and di* 
solved at the fancy of the parties. We look upon it Mith other reverence, 
becatise it is not a partnership in things subservient only to a gross animal 
existence of a peri.4iable nature. It is a partnership in all scioucc ; a partner- 
ship in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfectioii. As the 
ends of such a i>artiiership cannot be obtained iu many generations, it becomes 
a partnership not only between those who are living,"but between those who 
are living, tho.^e who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract 
of each Stat<: is but a clause in the great priiueval contract of eternal society, 
linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible with the in- 
visible world, according to a fixed compact, sanctioned by the inviolable oath 
which holds all physical, all moral natures each in their appointed place. 

TliAts, regarding our nationality as more than a life, as the assBeiation of many 
lives i"n oiie, as an immortality rather than a life, the people of this country 
will cling to it with u tenacity of purpose and energy of will as to the very 
cross of their teini)oral salvation, and revere it as the impersonation of their 
sovereign upon earth, whose tJirone is this goodly land, and whose mighty 
minstrelsj', ever playing before it, is the voice of au'intelligent, happy, and free 
people ! 



Printed by Lemuel Towers, at ^1 00 per hundred copies. 

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